Category Archives: Shelter

For Bay Area readers, the holiday party season kicks off with a festive fundraiser supporting the UCSF Positive Health Program and DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS). Funds raised help care for men, women and children with HIV/AIDS in San Francisco. In the past, DIFFA has sponsored a gala evening showcasing tableware displays. This year, [...]

I’ve written about a number of eco-friendly homes over the years but this beautiful remodel by architect Sherry Williamson has to be one of the most stylish. You can read more about the overall project in the current (October 2016) issue of Diablo Magazine, but I’m sharing a few photos here along with some ideas [...]

Yesterday I attended an iPhone photo editing workshop by Seattle-based photographer David Perry. The workshop was sponsored by my local chapter of the Garden Club of America of which I’m a new member. I can tell already that this will be a fun group to hang out with—garden ladies are the best! I thought I’d [...]

As you’ll know from previous posts, I’m a big fan of the American Craft Council San Francisco show held every August at Fort Mason. The ACCSF show is much like a grown up “back-to-school” shopping excursion for me where I go to see what’s new in handcrafted jewelry, clothing and home furnishings. I popped [...]

Because two friends I walk with in the early morning have been out of town for the past few weeks—summer travel has begun!—I’ve switched up my morning exercise routine by taking more yoga classes at the swim club down the road. Not entirely awake I stumble over to the sound of bird-song and the rhythmic [...]

Every time I attend the San Francisco Decorator Showcase I come away inspired by big design concepts and small design details. My travels have delayed my attendance so far this year, but these photographs by San Francisco photographer David Duncan Livingston make me eager to catch this stunning showcase before it closes on May 30. I [...]

Life took me to the mall yesterday. Lunch with an old friend and editor. Birthdays and baby showers to shop for. Trips on the horizon so a bit of travel shopping for myself. When I was done with my errands I slipped into a movie theater and caught a late matinee of the Gary Marshall [...]

One of my favorite Bay Area landscape designers is Keeyla Meadows. I first met Keeyla when I was scouting gardens for a major garden tour that served as a fundraiser for our children’s grade school. That was twenty-some years ago and over that time I’ve watched her garden evolve from a colorful but simple field [...]

Long before I started writing for shelter magazines I read them. And the one I read the most was Metropolitan Home. When it folded in 2009 it really left a void in my design inspiration library. Though I loved Dominique Browning’s editor’s note in House & Garden (another print publication casualty of the time), the [...]

Last week we traveled to Utah for a women’s history symposium where I saw this image of “Brigham Young and an Unknown Woman.” The unknown woman’s beaded bracelets and marks of torture on her hands have led historians to speculate that she was Native American. If so, is her face blurred because of her ethnicity [...]